Mayor & City Council

WHITEFISH CITY COUNCIL May 6, 2024 SPECIAL SESSION AT 5:20 PM 1) Call to Order Mayor Muhlfeld called the meeting to order. Councilors present were Qunell, Caltabiano, Sweeney, Davis, Norton, and Sweeney. Councilor Feury was absent. Staff present was City Manager Smith, and City Clerk Howke, and Parks and Recreation Director Butts. 2) Interview Council interviewed incumbents Doug Reed for the Resort Tax Monitoring Committee, and Paul McElroy for the Architectural Review Committee. Annaka Egan and Kendall Schneider were interviewed for the Whitefish Community Housing Committee; and Bruce Aronson and Thomas Shea were interviewed for the Board of Park Commissioners. Incumbent to the Board of Park Commissioners, Melissa Hartman, was out of town and not available for interview. 3) Public Comment None 4) Appointment a) Councilor Sweeney made a motion, seconded by Councilor Caltabiano to re-appoint Doug Reed to the Resort Tax Monitoring Committee for another 3-year term. The motion carried. b) Councilor Sweeney made a motion, seconded by Councilor Qunell to re-appoint Paul McElroy to the Architectural Review Committee for another 3-year term. The motion carried. c) Mayor Muhlfeld appointed, with Council ratification, Annaka Egan to the Whitefish Community Housing Committee. d) Mayor Muhlfeld appointed, with Council ratification, Bruce Aronson and Thomas Shea to the Board of Park Commissioners, and re-appointed Melissa Hartman for another 2-year term. 5) Adjourn Mayor Muhlfeld adjourned the meeting at 6:30 p.m. /s/John Muhlfeld Mayor Muhlfeld Attest: /s/ Michelle Howke Michelle Howke, Whitefish City Clerk  CounWHITEFISH CITY COUNCIL May 6, 2024 7:10 P.M. 1) CALL TO ORDER Mayor Muhlfeld called the meeting to order. Councilors present were Qunell, Caltabiano, Davis, Sweeney, and Norton. Councilor Feury was absent. City Staff present were, City Clerk Howke, City Manager Smith, City Attorney Jacobs, Finance Director Gospodarek, Planning and Building Director Taylor, Public Works Director Workman, Parks and Recreation Director Butts, Police Chief Kelch, Fire Chief Hadley, Housing Coordinator Sponable and Engineering and Sustainability Project Manager Hilding. Approximately 55 people were in the audience and 1 attended virtually. 2) PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE Mayor Muhlfeld asked Diane Conradi to lead the audience in the Pledge of Allegiance. 3) PRESENTATION a) Mountain Climber – Commuter Service Proposal (p.60) Liz Woods, Mountain Climber Director provided a presentation to the Council that is included in the packet on the website. The Mountain Climber is proposing to expand their commuter services between Kalispell, Whitefish and Columbia Falls, and expand the hours of On Demand service and increase to 3 drivers. The Commuter expansion will need to be approved by the County Commissioners. If the Commissioners approve the expansion, the Mountain Climber is asking the Council to increase the City’s annual contributions from $9,200 to $60,000. Councilor Caltabiano made a motion, seconded by Councilor Qunell to commit $60,000 a year to the Mountain Climber Commuter Service, from the general fund. Councilor Caltabiano stated he would like to find a way to charge out of state plates an average of $5 to park downtown. Those funds collected could go to transportation. Councilor Davis stated this is a pilot program, but the effectiveness of the use of the money is important. He is hesitant to commit in perpetuity forever the $60,000 a year until we have a better understanding of how many people are using it and what is the effectiveness of the money. The motion carried. 4) COMMUNICATIONS FROM THE PUBLIC– (This time is set aside for the public to comment on items that are either on the agenda, but not a public hearing or on items not on the agenda. City officials do not respond during these comments but may respond or follow-up later on the agenda or at another time. The mayor has the option of limiting such communications to three minutes depending on the number of citizens who want to comment and the length of the meeting agenda) Daniel Sidder, Executive Director of Housing Whitefish, provided an update on the Workforce Assistance Program. They received 37 applications for the first quarter of applications. Seventeen of those were approved. Of the twenty applications that were not approved, they either already paid less than 30% of their income towards rent; a few couples that applied separately but should have applied as household and about seven applications were “maybe’s”; they were currently living outside of the zip code. If they have a lease within 30 days, Housing Whitefish will still honor that award. Over the next 12 months, for those 17 applications, they will disperse $64,620 which is about $5,385 per month towards those qualified applicants and their housing needs. On average they will be paying $317 per applicant. That is going directly to the landlords. He reported 59% of the applicants expressed they are at risk of moving from Flathead County due to a lack of affordability or inability to pay rent. There were 14 single parents that applied for assistance. The average rent reported by applicants was $1,413.61. Only 8 of the applicants had utilities included in their rent. Women were 62% of the total applicant pool. Average age was 36 years old. On average, applicants  CITY COUNCIL MINUTES May 6, 2024 reported moving 1.5 times in the last three years. The second round of applications just opened up on May 1st and closes June 15th. Karin Hilding, Engineering and Sustainability Project Manager is in support of the Mountain Climber. She serves as the City’s representative to the County’s Transportation Advisory Committee. Elizabeth has been doing a great job directing the Mountain Climber. Part of her support comes from serving on the Climate Action Plan Committee. It is a goal of the Committee to have better transit available in the valley and within the city. The majority of greenhouse gas emissions appear to come from transportation in the valley. Transit is something that helps so many people, not everybody can afford a car. It helps equalize things and because of affordable housing being a key issue it connects some the affordable housing to our downtown. Jaden Woeppel, Flathead County Transportation Advisory Board Chair. He thanked the Council for their support. This plan has immense benefit to Flathead Valley broadly, but to Whitefish specifically. Joe Courtney, 535 Colorado Avenue, stated he was wondering about small towns paying for councilors and benefits. In some communities there are a lot of volunteers that volunteer a lot of their time for various organizations. They put in hundreds and hundreds of hours a month. He doubts that some city councils come close to matching what unpaid volunteers put in. If people are running for city council, especially incumbents, they should inform the public that they might want to be paid. He stated city staff does most of the work, city council just reads reports. They don’t do a lot of the work. A lot of the work in a lot of towns is getting doled out to consultants, specialists and using taxpayers’ money to make decision on things instead of the city council. The time a city councilor actually puts in, is it really worth the cost of paying them. Mayor Muhlfeld addressed Mr. Courtney’s comments. The City Council puts in a lot of time outside of these regular meetings. 5) COMMUNICATIONS FROM VOLUNTEER BOARDS Councilor Norton reported Arbor Day was at the Skate Park. High School students planted four trees. 6) CONSENT AGENDA (The consent agenda is a means of expediting routine matters that require the Council’s action. Debate does not typically occur on consent agenda items. Any member of the Council may remove any item for debate. Such items will typically be debated and acted upon prior to proceeding to the rest of the agenda. a) Minutes from April 15, 2024, Special Session (p.69) b) Minutes from April 15, 2024, Regular Meeting (p.70) c) Resolution No. 24-17; A Resolution declaring certain property to be unneeded and obsolete, and authorizing the disposal of such property (p.73) Councilor Sweeney made a motion, seconded by Councilor Caltabiano to approve the Consent Agenda as presented. The motion carried. 7) PUBLIC HEARINGS (Items will be considered for action after public hearings) (Resolution No. 07-33 establishes a 30- minute time limit for applicant’s land use presentations. a) Consideration of a request from JLA Whitefish, LLC for a Conditional Use Permit to develop 21 apartments on .54 acres located at 7 and 23 Iowa Avenue, zoned WR-4 (High Density Multi- Family Residential District) (WCUP 23-07) (p.76) Housing Coordinator Luke Sponable presented his staff report that is provided in the packet on the website. Staff received three letters from the public that are included in the packet on the website. 2  CITY COUNCIL MINUTES May 6, 2024 Mayor Muhlfeld opened the Public Hearing. Matt Lawrance, Montana Creative, applicant representative, stated the the applicant did discuss cash- in-lieu versus units. They can fit the parking to get that unit count to that, but they can’t get to that unit count if they don’t have the options that are offered to them. By offering the cash-in-lieu or the Deeded units, what advantages do they get in unit count? They made the decision through a calculation. Leo Keane, 514 Pine Place, stated this looks like a good use for the property. He thinks Whitefish needs to be looking at precedence for setting densities throughout the town. We keep adding and adding density without looking at quality of life for those who live here. Our infrastructure is taking a hit. In most cases the infrastructure would go ahead of the density or the developments. We haven’t been doing that. He feels our quality of life is suffering as we add more and more people. His other concern is, we have a tree ordinance now, this would be a good time for an inventory of the trees on that property. Joe Courtney, 535 Colorado Avenue, stated it seems to be a small space for 21 units if they are one level. He doesn’t have pros or cons on the project. It seems kind of small and the cash-in-lieu of 10% should represent two lots. Dakota Whitman, 102 Dakota Avenue, fully supports this project. It is a struggle for people who can’t afford to live in Whitefish. We need density. The people in his age bracket don’t have a quality of life because they can’t afford to live here. We need apartments like this. He lives in a studio apartment. He doesn’t need much, and it lets him save money. No everyone needs a one or two-bedroom apartment. He likes the diversity of options that this gives his neighborhood, and he welcomes the new neighbors that could potentially come. Nathan Dugan, 937 Kalispell Avenue supports this project. He suggested the Council to visit the calculation pertaining to the cash-in-lieu. Mack Fai, 605 St. Mortiz Drive, supports this project in this location for increased density, and walkable to downtown. His generation needs more availability of units in Whitefish. There being no further public comment, Mayor Muhlfeld closed the Public Hearing and turned the matters over to the Council for their consideration. Councilor Caltabiano made a motion, seconded by Councilor Norton to approve WCUP 23-07, the findings of fact in the staff report and the recommended conditions of approval as recommended by the Whitefish Community Development Board on April 18, 2024. Councilor Caltabiano stated it is time to think about a work session to evaluate the criteria for the percentage and the adjudication of cash-in- lieu for zone deviations. Councilor Davis made a motion, seconded by Councilor Qunell to add condition #8 to provide two deed restrictive units and cash-in-lieu for the remainder. Councilor Davis stated the general premises for the Legacy Homes Program is to allow certain zoning deviation in exchange for a percentage of the units in the project to be deed restricted affordable units. He was involved in drafting the program and is perplexed by the interpretation that the developer is able to offer at their discretion a cash-in-lieu or the units. He has a clear recollection that the original version of this program required units unless certain deviations. If there is a belief that it is entirely discretionary, he thinks it should be revisited at a later date. The community needs affordable housing units. That is the entire purpose of this program. We are not here to extract money on developer, we need units. Money can be turned into units, but it takes a lot of years, and it is expensive. 3  CITY COUNCIL MINUTES May 6, 2024 Councilor Qunell agrees with Councilor Davis. In the long-term providing two units that are deed restricted in perpetuity gives us more value than $618,000. He is appalled that we are giving up so much for as little as two units. He also agrees we need to revisit the criteria of this program. Councilor Norton stated she does not support the amendment. This is the kind of project we were hoping for when approving the Wisconsin Avenue Corridor Plan. It was only the first block off of Wisconsin Avenue that we were going to go high and dense. She has concerns that there is only $99,000 $9,000 in our affordable housing fund. She was comfortable with the Community Development Board’s decision to go with the cash-in-lieu. Councilor Sweeney stated the reason it is important to integrate affordable housing with the entire community. It makes sense to get the units, not the money. Councilor Caltabiano stated we have an ordinance in place and the previous developers had to come through those rules. He has concerns changing the rules of engagements for cash-in-lieu versus units permanently deeded. The cash-in-lieu maybe compared to the fact that units are so small they might end up very close to be if not affordable workforce housing kind of units. When Daniel Sidder presented, he managed to allocate $317 a month to 17 approved applicants shows that cash can go along way if managed wisely. For those reasons he will oppose the amendment. Councilor Sweeney confirmed the amendment requires us to follow the rules that are established in the ordinance. The exception to providing units is based on one of the exceptions provided in the ordinance. Attorney Jacobs stated generally we do prefer the units but there are certain circumstances that are provided in the ordinance in which Council can do cash-in-lieu, land-in-lieu. It is up to the Council if it fits any of the deviations provided in the ordinance. The motion to add Condition #8 carried on a vote 3-2, Councilors Norton and Caltabiano voting in the opposition. The original vote to approve WCUP 23-07 as amended to include Condition #8 carried. b) Consideration of approval to submit a SPA 124 Permit for Riverbend-Miles section of the Whitefish River Trail (p.140) Public Works Director Craig Workman presented his staff report that is provided in the packet on the website. Mayor Muhlfeld opened the Public Hearing. Staff received eight letters, including a petition with approximately 400 signature showing support to submit a SPA 124 Permit. The letters and signatures have been appended to the packet on the website and are included as part of the public record. John Wilson was the former Public Works Director for 18 years. Prior to being the Director, he was a carpenter and helped build the Riverbend Condominiums and walkway. This is a critical link of the trail system. He supports the submittal of the permit application. Tommy Shae, 100 4th Street, supports the submittal of the permit application. Austin Reece, 1253 Whitefish Village Drive, stated he has limited spaces to spend time with his family outdoors without the assistance of very expensive adaptive equipment. He supports the submittal of the permit application to complete the connection of the trail and provide more accessibility. Julie Tickle, 140 Burly Bear Trail, Executive Director of Dream Adaptive Recreation and a committee member of Safe Trails Whitefish supports the submittal of the permit. 4  CITY COUNCIL MINUTES May 6, 2024 Diane Conradi, 419 Spokane Avenue, member of Safe Trails Whitefish. Safe Trails Whitefish and 400 people who signed the petition really care about getting this section done. They stand with the Council to make sure to get this section done. Bruce Boody, 301 2nd Street, provided written comments that are included in the packet. Forty years ago, the City encouraged the original developer to place an easement on the property for a trail. He supports the submittal of the permit application. City staff has been working on this and deserve a big hand for what they have done. Antonia Malchik, 528 9th Street West, thanked Council for moving this forward and supports the submittal of the permit application. Lucas Stacy, 125 Lidstrom Rd, supports the submittal of the permit application. He has limited places he can recreate with his kids. For future generations he would like to see this get done. Casey Malmquist, 160 Walker Creek Lane, stated the time has come to get this done. We need to look at the trail system as part of our transportation system. He strongly encourages to move forward with the submittal of the permit application. Randy Carspecken, 107 Railway Street, supports the submittal of the permit application. Miles Avenue is a traffic hazard with the BNSF trucks utilizing the road. Andrea LaRosa, 325 Haugen Heights Road, agrees with everything that everyone says. She supports the submittal of the permit application. Regan Peschel, 1412 West Lakeshore Drive, is in full support. Les Fuller is vision impaired and loves the Whitefish trail system. He is in support. Chris Coughlin, 319 Haugen Heights, is in support. Steve Southerland, 319 Haugen Heights, is in support. Chance Cooke, 120 Park Avenue, is in support. There being no further public comment, Mayor Muhlfeld closed the Public Hearing and turned the matters over to the Council for their consideration. Councilor Sweeney made a motion, seconded by councilor Caltabiano to approve the 124 Permit submission proposed by staff, and to include option 3, steel stringers with precast concrete decking, be the design choice. Councilor Sweeney addressed how the audience has recognized the staff work that has gone into this, and that there is nothing that we have worked on harder in terms of our trail system, than this section. He stated Council will not let up until we get it done. We need all of their voices on our work with FWP and DNRC to get this completed. The motion carried. Mayor Muhlfeld called for a recess at 8:58 pm and reconvened at 9:05 pm. c) Ordinance No. 24-04; An Ordinance submitting to the qualified electors of the City of Whitefish, Montana, the question of whether to amend Article II, Section 2.01(4) of the City 5  CITY COUNCIL MINUTES May 6, 2024 Charter to delete the provision prohibiting City Council members from receiving salaries (First Reading) (p.200) Attorney Jacobs presented her staff report that is provided in the packet on the website. Councilor Norton provided a suggestion to include “City paid health insurance”, which indicates the City will pay the premium for the City Councilor or Mayor. She also asked what the difference is between a salary and a stipend? Manager Smith stated there is difference on taxability from the IRS standpoint between stipend and salary. Mayor Muhlfeld opened the Public Hearing. Kevin McDowell stated if he were to run for Council, he would need some type of compensation. He is in support of the proposed ballot language. Beth Sobba, 333 Baker Avenue, supports Council receiving compensation. She is concerned that the ballot language that is proposed is vague. There is not discussion of a limit on salaries or stipend. Mayor Muhlfeld stated that would be discussed through a public process if the voters approve the change to the charter. The salaries and stipend would be set through a resolution. She asked about the oversight and the implementation be discussed through a public process. Manager Smith confirmed that the proposed ballot language states the Charter language would be effective July 1, 2025, and Council can choose to move that date to January 1, 2025. The compensation amount and its effective date would be set through resolution at a later date. Joe Courtney, 535 Colorado Avenue, thanked the Council for their dedication, hard work, and time they put in. He asked if compensation and stipend would be an automatic raise every year. He also asked if a Council member would be paid if they were absent from a meeting. Does the pay go towards retirement that the City employees get? Will the Councilors be under the authority of the City Manager and would that influence the Council how to vote. Ed Doctor, 845 Wisconsin Avenue, stated he supports Council being compensated. There being no further public comment, Mayor Muhlfeld closed the Public Hearing and turned the matters over to the Council for their consideration. Councilor Qunell made a motion, seconded by Councilor Norton to adopt Ordinance No. 24- 04; An Ordinance submitting to the qualified electors of the City of Whitefish, Montana, the question of whether to amend Article II, Section 2.01(4) of the City Charter to delete the provision prohibiting City Council members from receiving salaries (First Reading). Councilor Norton made a motion, seconded by Councilor Caltabiano to change the ballot language to say City paid health insurance. The motion carried 4-1, Councilor Qunell voting in opposition. Councilor Norton made a motion, seconded by Counciler Qunell to change the implementation date to January 1, 2025. Councilor Caltabiano feels the implementation date is irrelevant. The implementation of the Charter does not affect the compensation of the council members. The resolution setting the compensation will affect council members. At that time, he will recommend that the current council are not eligible. A vote in that sense would cause a financial advantage to himself, in hence he would have to recuse under conflict of interest. Councilor Davis would like to have this in place by next election, 6  CITY COUNCIL MINUTES May 6, 2024 specifically prior to people deciding to run or not next year. The motion to amend the implementation date carried. Councilor Qunell addressed a few comment that have been made. The question arose during last election, “Do you think City Councilors should be paid”? There was a public meeting where he stated that it is time for Council to get paid. There is this sentiment among this Council and among some of the public that think that Council signed up knowing they would not get paid. He did run for election knowing that. He also stated it was time to change the Charter. We want the best possible people to be on City Council. We are limiting some of the best people from running because they financially can not afford it. Councilor Davis stated as the community grows the work that gets done here gets more difficult, more time consuming, and more important. It is important for the citizens to have good people operating on the City Council. Sending this to the voters is the right way to do it. The original motion to approve as amended carried. 8) COMMUNICATIONS FROM CITY MANAGER a) Written report enclosed with the packet. Questions from Mayor and Council? (p.208) None b) Other items arising between May 1st and May 6th Manager Smith reported she participated in a panel at the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce Growth Summit along with representation from the other cities. It was a great opportunity to share her thoughts on housing, transportation, and ways that we can work together as three cities and the county. She also mentioned that she wishes Luke Sponable, Housing Coordinator the best. He was a great addition to the City. c) Consideration to authorize City Manager to execute a contract with Communication & Management Services, LLC (CMS) to provide assistance in creating the Compensation Philosophy and developing/updating the Classification System (p.277) Manager Smith presented Human Resources Director, Sherri Baccaro’s report that is provided in the packet on the website. Councilor Caltabiano made a motion, seconded by Councilor Sweeney to authorize the City Manager to execute a consultant addendum as discussed and not to exceed $12,200. The motion carried. 9) COMMUNICATIONS FROM MAYOR AND CITY COUNCILORS Councilor comments Councilor Norton stated during the visioning session at Grouse Mountain, people were confused about our parking downtown. The confusion lies with the no re-parking regulations. She is wondering if as some point we should talk about how the parking is working. Manager Smith stated Parking Enforcement has taken steps to educate before issuing citations. Police Chief Kelch stated Parking Enforcement Potratz is doing an outstanding job and kudos for him because he is really taking this parking enforcement seriously. He has an extreme wealth of knowledge on the system that we use and is able to educate the public by handing out warnings with barcodes that pull up our parking maps, maps of Whitefish, and reference our city ordinances. Chief Kelch pulled reports on the number of re-parking citations that have been written since 7  CITY COUNCIL MINUTES May 6, 2024 January 1st to present. Four tickets and ten warnings. The signage is pretty clear downtown what a block face is and what the reparking ordinance is. Staff is doing everything they can to educate. They give plenty of citations, but give more warnings, both for traffic violations and more so for parking violations. He believes it is time to revisit parking and what options are out there with the technology that is available. Councilor Davis asked, and Director Workman stated pavement marking season will be kicking off in the next week or two. Councilor Davis also commented regarding the Legacy Homes Program. He pointed out that cash-in-lieu is not the only alternative means of compliance that we allow. In his experience it tends to be very difficult for developers and for the city when guidelines about what needs to be done are unclear or are subject to the whims of the council or anybody else. It would behoove us if the interpretation of our existing ordinance is that it is discretionary as to how it is complied. He strongly recommends revisiting the program and clarify for everybody’s sake for how this program should be complied. Councilor Sweeney concurs with Councilor Davis comments. He agrees with Councilor Norton, he was encouraged to see a full house for a good reason this evening. He couldn’t encourage them more based on their testimony to pursue this with all vigor that we can. Councilor Qunell stated with receiving the proposed budget for FY25 and looking at potential tax increases this year due to a number of reasons. Where are we in the process of rediscussing how we do our tax rebate to people who live here full time versus people who don’t. Manager Smith said that will be a work session. That process would have to go to a vote for Resort Tax. That will take time and will not be effective for FY25. She is hearing the Governors Property Tax Committee is looking at how they are taxing second homes versus residents. That could help and would be the next legislative session that starts in January. Councilor Qunell is adamant about this. Other states do it all the time. There has got to be models that we can copy. It has to happen before we start raising taxes on everybody while we are still giving millions back to people who don’t live here full time. As long as we are giving 25% back that we have to give it back evenly. We need to make it happen. Councilor Caltabiano fully agrees with Councilor Davis on revisiting the Legacy Homes Program cash-in-lieu versus units. A few Council members are thinking about parking fees. If we don’t want to do a full work session to construct a parking fee structure how about looking to collect data for this summer. The technology will allow to show the number of out of state license plates versus in state plates. Then we can decide if we charge them hourly to park and not penalize the residents. He asks to consider a work session to that effect. Mayor Muhlfeld agrees with all the comments tonight. 10) ADJOURNMENT (Resolution 08-10 establishes 11:00 p.m. as end of meeting unless extended to 11:30 by majority) Mayor Muhlfeld adjourned the meeting at 9:49 p.m. /s/John Muhlfeld Mayor Muhlfeld Attest: /s/Michelle Howke Michelle Howke, Whitefish City Clerk 8